Tencent’s Beijing woes make case for breakup
HONG KONG, March 15 (Reuters Breakingviews) – A Tencent (0700.HK) breakup is a radical but simple way to address mounting regulatory battles. The Chinese titan may be in hot water over money laundering and other financial breaches on its payments-to-messaging WeChat app, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. At the same time, censors are also targeting its video-games cash cow, adding to a selloff. Spinning off the latter would be a straightforward way to isolate risks from Beijing.
A financial crackdown on its mobile payments arm is the last thing boss Pony Ma needs amid volatile markets. The company is already grappling with a broader economic slowdown and China’s recent Omicron outbreak read more . Tencent has deftly sidestepped the cybersecurity probes and anti-trust investigations that have ensnared peers like Didi Global (DIDI.N) and Alibaba (9988.HK). Its games, though, have been in an awkward spotlight for causing online addiction and myopia among kids. Over the past year, the company’s market capitalisation has halved to roughly $400 billion; the stock trades at just 17 times forward 12-month earnings, less than half its own 5-year average, per Refinitiv, and below global video-games peers like Take-Two Interactive (TTWO.O) and Activision Blizzard (ATVI.O).
A spinoff would crystallise that value, rather than leaving it weighed down by Tencent’s sprawling, under-fire empire that spans its WeChat social network, payments, cloud computing and advertising across various platforms. It helps too that the unit has limited overlap with those divisions, and as a result of a 2018 restructuring operates under a separate business group. Breaking up may be the best way forward.
腾讯在北京的困境使其有理由进行解体
香港，3月15日（路透社Breakingviews）–腾讯（0700.HK）解体是解决日益严重的监管斗争的一个激进但简单的方法。据《华尔街日报》周一报道，这家中国巨头可能因其支付和通讯结合的微信应用涉嫌洗钱和其他金融违规行为而陷入困境。同时，审查人员也在针对其视频游戏的摇钱树，加剧了抛售。剥离后者将是隔离来自中国政府的风险的一种直接方式。
在市场动荡的情况下，打击移动支付业务和进行金融限制是令老板马化腾最头疼的行为。该公司已经在努力应对更广泛的经济放缓和中国最近爆发的奥米克朗事件。腾讯已经巧妙地避开了网络安全调查和反垄断调查，这些调查使滴滴出行（DIDI.N）和阿里巴巴（9988.HK）等同行陷入困境。不过，其游戏业务因导致儿童上网成瘾和近视，一直处于尴尬的聚光灯下。过去一年，该公司的市值减少了一半，约为4,000亿美元；根据Refinitiv的数据，该股的12个月远期收益仅为17倍，不到其五年平均水平的一半，而且低于全球视频游戏同行，如Take-Two Interactive（TTWO.O）和Activision Blizzard（ATVI.O）。
剥离游戏业务将更好地实现其价值，而不是让它被腾讯这个庞大的、不被看好的商业帝国所拖累。这个商业帝国横跨微信社交网络、支付、云计算和各种平台的广告。这也有助于避免游戏业务与其他业务的功能重叠，而且由于2018年的重组，该部门已经处于独立的模式下运作。正式分裂可能是最好[规避监管]的办法。
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